The Lucasville Uprising was a rebellion against oppressive and racist policies at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility (SOCF) in Lucasville, OH. Nine inmates and one guard died during the uprising in April of 1993. Today, many people are serving time or condemned to death by the state of Ohio in relation to the uprising. We demand amnesty for all of these inmates. The conditions at SOCF were (and still are) intolerable and unconscionable.

Ohio
prisoner Imam Siddique Abdullah Hasan says he was recently threatened
with disciplinary action by an investigator at the Ohio State
Penitentiary for speaking on the National Public Radio program, “On
Point,” about the September 9 national prison strike.

Hasan, who is a Muslim spiritual leader on death row for his alleged
role in the 1993 Lucasville Uprising, said he was informed he would be
written up for unauthorized use of the phone and could have his phone
and email privileges restricted, despite an understanding with prison
officials that he could use his phone and email time to communicate with
media as he has done for the past decade.
On Monday, Hasan told Shadowproof he was not sure when the
disciplinary actions would come down, but he and his supporters expect
it to be imminent. If it happens, it will be the second time he’s
faced retaliation for supporting the strike in as many months.
“I’m getting kind of mentally exhausted. How am I going to deal with
this nonsense?” Hasan said. “I’m not going to throw in the towel. I just
remain in the trenches.”
“If [prison officials] do come through on their threats, and I’m sure
perhaps they will—to what extent I don’t know, it remains to be
seen—I’m not going to passively sit and accept it,” Hasan added.
“As far as violence or anything like that, no, we don’t see any
benefit in anything like that,” he said. “I just want to make that
clear.”
Hasan suggested he might go on hunger strike and urged supporters to organize a protest outside the prison if that happens.
His ability to participate in the strikes on death row is rather
limited. He and other similarly situated prisoners are not permitted to
work, and therefore cannot refuse their labor. Instead, he has decided
to show solidarity with those who can strike by using his media
profile to raise consciousness about the action and the issues
motivating it.
“I [have] been speaking for ten years on radio programs,” Hasan said.
“In fact, I’ve spoken on many radio programs—another NPR radio program
with Karen Kessler. I spoke on all kind of programs, college campuses,
you name it, somebody call on me and I’d talk, and not just on prison
issues—Black Lives Matter, the economic situation, the fifteen dollar
minimum wage. And the prison authorities have known that. They’ve heard
me speak on these issues.”
“When I went on hunger strike last March, I spoke,” Hasan recalled.
“It was recorded and all these officers came up to me and said, ‘We
heard you on the radio,’ and this, that, and the other. It’s all on the
internet. So this is not nothing new. The prison officials know I have
been doing this. I don’t know why all of a sudden it became a big
issue.”
In a letter
published on the website for Lucasville Amnesty, a group which supports
Hasan, Greg Curry, and other prisoners wrongfully convicted in
connection to the Lucasville Uprising, Hasan explained how he came to
learn of the impending disciplinary action against him.
“While on a visit yesterday with a friend and staunch supporter of
mine, the Ohio State Penitentiary investigator, Mr. Wylie, came to my
table and wanted to speak with me,” he wrote. “My visitor excused
herself and Mr. Wylie sat in her seat and then began to explain the
nature of his urgent visit with me.” Hasan said Mr. Wylie wanted to
discuss the interview he has just done with NPR.
“While I am not going to write you up, I wanted to give you a warning
that you are not allowed to do radio interviews with the media,” Mr.
Wylie allegedly told Hasan.
Hasan explained, “That was not correct and that the understanding I,
as well as my attorneys and the media, had was that neither [Ohio State
Penitentiary] nor its superiors at Central Office [Ohio Department of
Rehabilitation and Correction] would allow members of the media to
conduct on-camera interviews with me or be allowed to bring in any
recording devices.”
In fact, the issue is the subject of a 14th Amendment lawsuit
brought by Hasan, other prisoners implicated in the Lucasville
Uprising, and journalists denied the opportunity to conduct interviews.
Hasan argued he could use his phone and email time to correspond with
the media, adding prison officials even facilitated such
correspondence.
“Now, due to prisoners and their supporters challenging and speaking
out against prison slavery, mass incarceration, and the super economic
exploitation of prisoners, their families, friends, and loved ones,
OSP wants to threaten me with additional sanctions,” he declared.
Hasan said the investigator warned him not to tell the press he was
“an organizer and member of the Free Ohio Movement,” one of many groups
supporting prisoners in Ohio, as he had on the program.
Mr. Wylie left Hasan and Hasan resumed his visit. When he was
finished, he was strip searched in a cage before being taken back to his
cell. But when he was about to leave the cage, the officers
escorting him were directed to lock him back up because the investigator
wanted to speak with him again.
This time Mr. Wylie told him he “had his orders, that the matter was
much bigger than he was initially told, that he has to listen to more of
my phone conversations, and that, for starters, he would be writing me a
conduct report for unauthorized use of the phone.”
Mr. Wylie said he “wanted to be the first one to inform me of these
new developments, especially since he had initially told me there would
be no write up. (I want to mention that Mr. Wylie was very polite and
respectful on both occasions. It appears that he was getting his orders
from a higher authority.)”
In August, before the strike began, Hasan was thrown in the hole and
had his email and phone use restricted for thirty days. Prison officials
claimed
he asked an imam to wear an explosive vest into the prison—a claim for
which there is substantial doubt, and one which Hasan vigorously denies.
He has filed a lawsuit against the prison over the incident.

“Don’t worry about me. Whatever they’re gonna do to
me, I can withstand it,” Hasan told Shadowproof. “This is not the first
time I’ve been dealt with harshly by prison authorities, so whatever
they do, I can withstand it.”

A recording interrupted him to say there was only one minute left and
that the conversation may be monitored. When it finished, Hasan said,
“Don’t worry about you saying anything, writing anything, going on any
programs, and talking about my case.
“I think for us to sit back and be quiet and allow them to do what
they plan on doing, that hurts me more than anything y’all can actually
say.”